Employee Friendly Policies and Practices

Young people are more mobile and less committed to individual organizations. The baby boomers are approaching retirement age.

To retain staff, organizations have to be more flexible, ensuring that work/life balance is possible.

When we talk about work/life balance, we tend to picture in our mind couples with young children. It actually applies to all employees. Work/life balance applies to young, single people and older people seeking shorter working hours.

People want to experience life. They want to travel. They want flexibility and because of the skills shortage, they can seek out organizations that cater for these aspirations.

So organizations need to have supportive policies like sabbaticals (12 months leave of absence without pay) and flexible working hours.

Once the policies are in place, managers and team leaders need to implement them correctly. Workplace flexibility is much harder to manage. Sometimes it hard to meet operational demands when everyone wants Friday off to make it a four day weekend (eg. Queens Birthday public holiday on the Monday). But it has to be managed. The good intent behind the flexibility policy is lost if it is too much hassle to get the time off you need. There has to be a match between reality and expectations.

These things are about the interaction between work and private time.

What about the time actually spent at work?